I Never Came to You in White

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0395874424, Paperback)

Judith Farr, the author of The Passion of Emily Dickinson and the editor of Emily Dickinson: A Collection of Critical Essays takes a great risk in her first novel I Never Came to You in White, which is, for all intents and purposes, a fictionalized biography of Dickinson. But Farr is on solid ground. Focusing on Dickinson's teen years, Farr recreates through fictional letters the mid-19th-century world the poet inhabited. The device allows Farr to explore questions of Dickinson's sexuality and faith. The result is a novel that offers an intriguing and insightful glimpse into the life of a poet whose eccentricity and genius have made her an elusive subject for those who have studied her life and read her work.